A well intentioned rant about the current state of Advertising, with particular emphasis on Big Dumb Agencies (BDA's) Because, no matter how bad you think it is, it's actually a great deal worse!
"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill pail." George Orwell.

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I must say, the American health care system is a bit of a mystery to me, even though I have worked on hospitals, drugs, insurance and every other scam BDA’s can make money on. In fact, I have a whole chapter on the subject in “The Ubiquitous Persuaders.” So, I was amused to read in today’s New York Times that many hospitals are flogging luxury suits to rich fuckers ready to cough up to $4,500 a night while getting their titanium arse transplant from ace surgeon, Dr. Gerwurstreminer. Here’s an example.. Nancy Hemenway, a senior financial services executive, said “I was supposed to be in Buenos Aires last week taking tango lessons, but unfortunately I hurt my back, so I’m here with my concierge. I’m perfectly at home here, totally private, totally catered. I have a primary-care physician who also acts as ringmaster for all my other doctors. And I see no people in training — only the best of the best.” You have to sympathise though, it’s really fucked up the poor woman’s tango lesson schedule.

OK, so McGarryBowen won AdAge’s “Agency of the Year.” Yawn, fucking yawn. But the good news is that my drinking mates at Droga5 won Creativity’s “Agency of the Year.” And yes, they beat the CP+B Frat/Fart boys of Boulder!!! I mean what the fuck is going on? Droga5 merely does really great work for a whole range of clients, while CP+B comes up with the Kraft “Mood-O-Meter.” I mean this is on a level with “The King” and we know what that did for Burger King sales. Check out the Droga5 work, then read the complete profile on Droga5, particularly Dave’s words at the end… "I care about our contribution to our industry. Certainly the quality and effectiveness of our thinking is our primary concern, but I also want us to help move our industry forward. Advertising is an industry under duress. People compromise for a buck and take short cuts for short term gains. In fact I would say no industry has worked harder at being lazy. But we believe our industry is far better and more important than it is given credit for.” Well said. Congratulations Dave, Ted, Andrew and the rest of the guys hanging out in a Bowery doorway.

If you ever needed conclusive proof that Facebook is for Fucktards, yes, all eight hundred billion of them, or whatever the last pumped up figure was… Read about a new study in a somewhat nozzely journal with the wanky name… Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Ouch, fucking ouch. Anyway some Utah Valley University sociologists did a study with 425 college students concerning their use of Facebook. The survey revealed that students who spend a lot of time on Facebook are relatively more likely to perceive other people as having better lives than themselves. In other words, they considered themselves as douchenozzles. This included all their many Facebook “Friends” who they had never actually fucking met. And in another study from Case Western, heavy users of Facebook were also heavy users of booze, drugs, had sex with multiple partners, and were 94% likely to have been in a physical fight. And yeah, I’m on Facebook to pimp my books… Wanna make something out of it?

So, McGarryBowen is this years AdAge, “Agency of the Year.” Anyone surprised? At the same time, AdAge’s sister publication, Creativity, names Droga5 its “Agency of the Year.” Well, that makes a change from the Frat/Fart boys in Boulder. Maybe Alex stopped paying the “vig” now that he’s down in “The Fucking Shed” saving mankind. Anyway, backtracking to McGarryBowen. Apparently they were picked ‘cos they do very safe, uninspiring work, schmooze the shit out of their clients,,, And, Oh yes, pulled off a measly SIXTY FUCKING PERCENT growth in revenue. HaHa, the Poisoned Dwarf would kill for that kind of shit. And can you imagine the “performance” bonus Michael Roth would award himself if he got six percent? Lots of Kudos being handed out to McG’s head of digital… who just happens to have the same name as the boss, with a “The Third” tagged on the end. Bet no one in his department argues with him! Hey, nepotism worked for Donny before he discovered Peruvian Marching Powder. On a final note, search parties are still searching for Gordon to give him the good news.

The more I read about the arrest of Megaupload Nozzle, Kim Dotcom, the stranger it gets. He’s facing extradition to the US, and if convicted, a long time in the slammer. Here’s a slightly edited comment on Gawker by “AbFabGab”…

Let's make one thing clear, MegaUpload wasn't selling the intellectual property of anyone. They were selling memberships and ads. Some of their members uploaded unauthorized intellectual property, some of those ads surrounded the unauthorized intellectual property. There are no accusations that they uploaded any of the infringing content themselves, and having been to the site a few times, I know they did respond to DMCA takedown notices. This entire case is shady, totally overreaching and really fucking egregious. Should this guy be convicted, and I have no doubt he will, it sets a really dangerous precedent. It says that you can go to jail for what other people upload to your servers, even if you comply with requests to takedown any infringing content when you're made aware of its existence. It is absolutely in the interest of Amazon, Dropbox and all of the clean, well lit services everyone seems to think will be "okay" to back MegaUpload. It also proves SOPA/PIPA are totally unnecessary. They're seizing the property of and arresting a German citizen living in New Zealand, working for a Chinese company because he broke an American law. One that is, by the way, completely non-violent but carries more time than insider trading or any of the shady shit that goes on on Wall Street, with the potential to really fuck up the economy.

There’s more. Particularly on how, if you use cloud storage as a back up for all your shit… You could lose everything if the Feds close down your hosting company. Read it.

AdScamer, “Chevy Driver” advises me that the winner of the world’s wankiest crowdsourcing contest is not “Miss Van Der Volt.” Obviously, in spite of you all casting your votes for her, some kind of shit has been going on, and she will not be starring in a Chevy Super Bowl spot. The “massive” $25,000 prize goes to 26 year old Zach Borst (which is obviously a fake name!) for his "Chevy Happy Grad" commercial. Which is a funny spot, and was supposedly shot in an hour for a budget of five hundred Groupon coupons, in Floral Park, Long Island, New York. Give me a fucking break. I have it on good authority it was shot for ten million at “SilverCup” studios, Long Island, by Joe Pytka… Who just happens to be the third cousin removed of Joel Ewanick, GM’s Chief Marketing Nozzle, who said in a statement. “When I saw Joe’s spot, I had to laugh. Oh fuck, I meant, when I saw Zach’s spot, I had to laugh.”

It would seem that anyone in the IT or eCommerce business is only doing well if they are dealing in fucking mega numbers. Every day, we hear that FaceBook has just signed up another hundred million fucktards, Groupon flogged another trillion coupons for out of date sushi, and Twitter is on course to generate a billion dollars a day in ad revenue (they just don’t say when, though.) Then on Friday, Google announced that 700,000 new Androids are activated every day. This compares with Apple’s 190,000 a day, although with the launch of the iPhone 4S, they did 1.3 million a day for the first three days. This did not include all the Chinese douchenozzles throwing rotten eggs at their Apple stores, because after waiting in-line for days to get their mitts on a new iToy, they were told there were none, and they should come back in the “Year of the Aflac Duck.” Or something. Anyway, who the fuck is buying all these phones? If the reason China is kicking our arse is ‘cos they pay their workers peanuts, or Lychee nuts, or whatever, how the fuck can they afford iPhones?

This is nothing to do with politics… Well, yes it is… But it’s primarily about overcoming bad PR and an abysmal record. The Marshmallow Man won the SC Primary. OK, fuck all surprises me about US politics. I’m just a bit flummoxed that with his “personal history” all the Southern born-again wankers, even the majority of the women, voted for him. It’s either proof that advertising works, or GOP voters have something very fucking weird going on in their heads. And speaking of fucked up PR, check out the picture below, taken on a tour of Poland, Newt and Callista used it on their Web site to promote a film about Pope John Paul II. And yes folks, that’s the gate at Auschwitz!

Did you read all the details about the arrest of “Megaupload” Uber-Wanker, Kim Dotcom (real name Adolf Nozzlegruber), over in New Zealand. It reads like a fucking James Bond movie. Apparently his multi-million dollar mansion outside of Auckland was surrounded by all kinds of electronic locking devices, and the 6’7” – 300 pound uber-wanker had sealed himself inside a fucking safe room. The Kiwi SWAT team had to cut their way in with a Martini fueled laser device. They found Dotcom sitting with a sawn off shotgun and eight fucking million dollars in cash. No mention of Pussy Galore. Who says piracy doesn’t pay? Meantime, the cops were removing his car collection, including a pink Cadillac and a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop head Coupe. No more “Leopard Piss” in this fucktard’s future!